arjun wrote:• "Who has asked you to change the clothes? Wear whatever you like. You have to come in contact with a lot of people. There is no restriction on coloured clothes. You can wear any cloth. There's no connection with clothes.
Well, there you have it from the top. Thank you very much. It amazing the little miracles that are recorded in the original Murlis. This really underlines how much of the 'cultic aspect' of the Brahma Kumaris is human inspired.
Choosing a single colored single cloth was also a very good way of making everyone equal. Especially in the beginning when some of the girls came from very wealthy families and were attracted or attached to beautiful fineries, when others were complete poor. Dress very often donates class/caste and status in society.
What we discover now is in some centers in India is that there is still a subtle caste system/dress consciousness in centers where the center-in-charge will get the new sari and the youngest surrendered Sister in Gyan will get the second or third-hand, hand-me down old saris. Originally, there only used to be cheap cotton types but then gradually shiney new polyesters ones were introduced as formal or even "power dressing" by the more progressive Sisters ... as the old fashioned kind tended to look like wrinkled piles of old bed linen.
White saris have become the formal, "official uniform", and definitely indicate rank along with the size and quality of the badge (see other thread); the salwar kameez/kurta pajama, has become a sort of "off-duty" dress. I would admit that as a BK, I would look down at another BK that did not wear 100%, or if a Sister would a mainly white sari with alittle decoration, it would be thought that she was not 100% pukka or self-realised. The wearing of white was a sort of "rite of passage" ritual, symbolic of "dying alive" and being reborn as a BK Brahmin.
Initially, Westerns attempted to find white Western style cloths in whites of a formal sort but they did not look so good. To the Western eye, a white suit has limited or negative values. So off white or beige became a "serviceable" alternatively, e.g. light enough to stand out and indicate a degree of purity but not too whacky/cheesie/cultie looking.
One of the funniest memories I have is of a story of a BK picnic in a park in Australia where all the BK were wearing white to be pukka. (There certainly was group pressure to dress/conform in white). Whilst walking through the park in one direction, all the BK bumped into a party of cooks and chefs walking in the other direction who were also all wearing white (traditionally cooks and chef will wear cotton whites in high class kitchens). You can imagine the strange looks on each group's face as it walked past the other. I would not say wearing white was a natural thing for westerners to do, especially in any season except summer.
In the beginning, at least, there was also group pressure, I thought, to dress in a very orthodox, middle of the road look which, again, I think that it not really have its roots in the philosophy of the Murli. Amongst Western Sisters, I would also say that there was a subtle fashion of dressing like a "New Age angel" which, kind of came in from some of he dance costumes that they used to put on for "Avyakt Dancing".
Anyone else as attuned to this sort of stuff to notice?